Apart from the World Cup, this is the only tournament in which all Test countries have had the opportunity to take part-though in 2017 only the top 8 are playing, with the West Indies and Zimbabwe failing to qualify. Similarly in 2009 and 2013 Bangladesh and Zimbabwe did not qualify for the top 8. In 2006 all 10 countries competed, while the “main” tournament followed immediately after the “qualifying” tournament involving the bottom 4: West Indies, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. As things turned out West Indies and Sri Lanka qualified and the former ultimately became the runners-up.

There has been only one other multinational 50/60-over tournament (other than the Champions Trophy and World Cup) where all Test countries participated. This was the Benson & Hedges World Championship in Australia in 1984-85:

All 7 Test-playing countries at that time took part. These included Sri Lanka but not the exiled South Africa. You might say this was an unofficial World Cup.

Note that the only ICC tournaments won by South Africa (1998) and New Zealand (2000) can be found in the records of the Champion’s Trophy).

Footnote: If anyone wants to play around on Statsguru, they can select “ICC Champions Trophy (ICC Knockout)” in the Tournament heading, to get the aggregates for all these matches from 1998 onwards. I will be doing this in more detail over the next few days.

For the moment, the most matches played are 22 by M. Jayawardene and Sangakkara. The most runs scored is 791 by Gayle, and the most wickets 28 by the lesser-known KD Mills of New Zealand. The most dismissals are 33 by Sangakkara.

The best individual scores are 145* by NJ Astle and 145 by Andy Flower.

The best innings bowling is 6-14 by MF Mahroof of Sri Lanka. No one else has taken more than 5 wickets in an innings.